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Image of the day: France is burning. By Valery Hache/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images [h/t The New York Times]

The latest news from the surreal hellscape that is our nation’s government is that Trump is banning transgender people from the military. Doesn’t it seem like the right wing always comes up with a culture wars bone to pick when their political/economic agenda (Russia investigation, healthcare repeal, etc…) is under siege? At any rate, this is terrible, but if laughing is therapeutic for you, watch this Samantha Bee bit in which she provides commentary to rambling speeches made by potentially drunk Republican congressmen about trans people in the military. How is our country this insane? [Facebook]

Pussy Riot and Les Enfants Terribles are fundraising for “an immersive theater project” in which the audience would get to experience the Pussy Riot ordeal. That includes everything from their infamous performance in a Russian church to their crazy trial and time in a labor camp. Sounds fun? [Kickstarter]

Remember “Chewbacca Mom”? The Texas woman who rose to brief, unlikely fame because she laughed so hard wearing a Chewbacca mask in a parking lot on Facebook Live? Writer Alyssa Bereznak does, as she’s been following Candace Payne via Google alerts for the past year. Here she has a timeline of the viral sensation’s rise and fall in public favor. It’s fascinating. The internet is a weird (and judgemental) place. [The Ringer]

Phew. After much outrage (including plenty of cute tributes from artists included in this link) Microsoft announced that MS Paint would NOT be disappearing, but will be available for download from their app store. [artnet News]

Rumors have been flying that beloved Baltimore dive bar The Club Charles will be closing, starting August 1st, indefinitely. Some say it will reopen following renovations, but there are few details here. The 66 year old institution is basically like the evening office of the city’s art/theater/literati scene. It’s John Waters’ favorite bar, among countless other filmmakers, musicians, artists, and drunks. I (Michael) will be devastated if this is a permanent closure. [City Paper]

The Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan 1994 Museum will partner with @popculturediedin2009—an archive dedicated to the drama of the aughts—to mine the decade’s pop-culture. I’m not sure what to think of this. On the one hand, these scandals may already be a source of nostalgia, and therefore hold some enjoyment. On the other, is it not too soon for this? I keep thinking there’s got to be a better use of intellectual engagement than this—particularly given our current political climate. [artnet News]

Karen Loew makes the case for the Small Business Jobs Survival Act, and looks at what other cities are doing to stop the spread of chain stores, closure of neighborhood retail, and “high rent blight” that’s been hitting Manhattan so hard. Basically, New York is way behind on protecting legacy businesses. This is something every gallerist or artist with a studio (or really, anyone who enjoys bodega food) should be getting behind. [City Lab]

Related: The Zapatista-inspired Eastside Café (which functions as an art/activism/community space in East Los Angeles) managed to stand its ground against gentrification and buy their building from the landlord when developers came knocking. Amazing. [Remezcla]

2070 photographs by Annie Leibovitz were purchased by a wealthy patron in 2012 and donated to The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax. That was a boon for Leibovitz who was struggling financially at the time. The problem is, while the donor purchased the work for 4.75 million, it’s valued at 20 million and the Canadian government doesn’t want to sign off on the deduction. The panel tasked with approving the donation has accepted that only some of the photographs are art. Also, it seems the valuation of the portfolio is less than that of the individual works, thus creating the disparity of value. [The New York Times]

A score for Acquavella Gallery: Phillip de Montebello, former head of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will join their staff as curator of special exhibitions. [The New York Times]

Applications close in four days for the free 360 Xochi Quetzal artist/writer residency on Lake Chapala, Mexico. This place looks beautiful. [360 Xochi Quetzal]

Following up on our Shark Week coverage, the Discovery Channel aired their “race” of 500 time Olympic Gold Medalist Michael Phelps swimming against a Great White Shark, and people are pissed. Obviously, they weren’t going to put Phelps in the water with a shark, but I at least thought there would be a shark. Nope. Basically, they had Phelps wear a fin to give the swimmer the same advantage the fish had, filmed him swimming alone, and then paired him with a computer animation. Lame. There were at least some good memes to come out of this whole thing though. Whomever the intern is that made this image—hire them. [The New York Times]

Hate read: a guide to New York City’s largest mega mansions. There are typically created by rich people buying two to three buildings, kicking everyone else out, and combining them into one home so oversized it’s hard to imagine most of the space being used. The list of owners living/creating mega mansions includes Michael Bloomberg, Madonna, Larry Gagosian, and Jeff Koons. [Curbed]

“I’m getting braver at saying the name of a sorely under-known Brazilian artist whose retrospective at the Whitney Museum, “Hélio Oiticica: To Organize Delirium,” comes as an overdue revelation.” This is the first line of Peter Schjeldahl’s review in The New Yorker and we’re seeing grumblings on Twitter of how offensive this is. Get a grip. If you don’t know how to pronounce a name, or if it’s hard to pronounce properly for English people, it’s embarrassing. This is an admission that he’s working to learn, not that he’s revealing his implicit racism. If anyone has a right to poke fun at unpronounceable last names, it’s a guy named Schjeldahl. [Twitter, The New Yorker]

Artist Sarah Craske found a 300 year old edition of Ovid’s “Metamorphosis” at a junk shop. She’s since cultured centuries’ worth of readers’ bacteria from over the centuries for an artwork. [The Guardian]

Why is Condo being described as an art fair alternative? The event is an gallery-share model where galleries share their space with foreign dealers for the length of a show. Is launching exhibitions now secondary to participating in art fairs? [artnet News]

It turns out Alice Cooper has had a Warhol “Electric Chair” painting rolled up in a tube in storage for decades. The rocker totally forgot he had it. [The Guardian]

Microsoft is killing off its 32 year program beloved of artists, MS Paint. Well, there goes that genre of art making. [The Guardian]

A profile on the Indianapolis Museum of Art Director Charles Venable, who recently cut the museum’s staff by 11%, gets called out by Indianapolis’ NUVO as “cagey and opaque”. Yikes. This follows Tyler Green’s damning article on the director’s decision to make cuts in March. [NUVO]

The Brooklyn Museum is planning an exhibition of cat gods, “Divine Felines: Cats of Ancient Egypt.” It won’t be cute, and we fully expect cat mummies like this one to inspire some nightmares. [In The Air]

With Anthony Wiener’s mayoral run, we’re covering our ears just thinking of how many bad puns we’ll be hearing. Prime examples of the worst puns ever, found here. [Politicker]

Hoping that smaller is better, Microsoft is coming out with a 7-inch tablet. They already have plenty of competition in the tiny screen market. [The Daily Beast]